July 9, 2012

What happens to a social scientist who builds her career on exposing illusory “sex rings” and “ritual abuse” at day cares? And, more specifically, whose seminar at Kill Devil Hills apparently seeded the hysteria behind the prosecution of the Edenton Seven?

If you’re Ann Wolbert Burgess, it’s no problem. You just plunge ahead – and don’t look back.

Here’s how Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker described Burgess in 2001 in “Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a  Modern American Witch Hunt”:

“promoter of the use of children’s drawings to diagnose sexual abuse, developer of the idea of the sex ring, participant in developing the case that imprisoned the Amirault family and currently a researcher into the traumatic aftereffects of ritual abuse.”

For some people, that would be a career’s worth of wrongheaded ideas. But Burgess, now professor of psychiatric mental health nursing at Boston College, continues to accumulate merit badges on new topics such as heart attack victims, AIDS, infant kidnapping, online predators, nursing home abuse, women in prison, mass murder and elder abuse. Here she is in Raleigh on May 29 testifying as “an expert in crime scene classification and offender typology.”

Whew.

I’ve asked Dr. Burgess to reflect on Little Rascals and other examples of ritual abuse prosecutions. Too bad the subject didn’t come up when she was on the witness stand in Raleigh.

May 27, 2013

Recent revelations about billionaire David Koch’s influence on the airing of an unflattering PBS documentary bring to mind how UNC-TV showed similar deference to the accusing parents in the Little Rascals case.

Although a roundtable arranged by New York station WNET to follow the Koch-critical “Park Avenue” excluded filmmaker Alex Gibney, that discussion at least offered viewers a range of viewpoints about income inequality.

By contrast, in 1993 UNC-TV director Tom Howe said he agreed with parents that “Innocence Lost: The Verdict” was unbalanced and barred defense attorney Mike Spivey from participating in the discussion afterward. (I requested a copy of the program, but the station said it was unable to find one.)

In 1997, UNC-TV gave prosecutor Nancy Lamb and parent Susan Small time on “North Carolina NOW” to discuss the decision to drop the last charges in Little Rascals. “Both responded with long, rather unfocused answers,” Current magazine observed, “and the interview concluded without a single follow-up question….”

asmdc.org

Assemblywoman Patty López with the Dalai Lama in June.

Aug. 13, 2016

“A bill to increase criminal penalties for prosecutors who intentionally withhold or falsify evidence is headed to the [California] state Senate after being approved in committee.

“The measure by Assemblywoman Patty Lopez, D-San Fernando, would upgrade the violation from a misdemeanor to a felony for offending prosecutors. It’s already a felony for police officers to withhold or falsify evidence. The proposal provides for sentences of 16 months, two years and three years.

“The bill received the go-ahead from the Senate Appropriations Committee despite opposition from prosecution groups that say it is redundant and potentially costly.

“Opponents say that boosting the penalty for prosecutors would bog down the courts and that prosecutors already are subject to sanctions by the state Bar Association when they commit misconduct.

“Supporters argue that judges and the Bar rarely take action against offenders.”

– From “Bill boosting penalty for prosecutor misconduct gets OK” by Tony Saavedra in the Orange County Register (Aug. 11)

Is it possible that other states, such as California, aren’t as timid in disciplining prosecutors as is North Carolina?

Oct. 14, 2015

“(Attorney General Roy Cooper) took over a tangled and controversial investigation of alleged gang rape by Duke University athletes, eventually in 2007 making the extraordinary determination that the crime never happened….”

– From “Cooper formally declares campaign to unseat McCrory” by Craig Jarvis in the News & Observer of Raleigh (Oct. 12)

So far, Attorney General Cooper’s willingness to address crimes that never happened hasn’t extended to the Little Rascals Day Care case.